BLITHE SPIRIT
Journal of the British Haiku Society
Volume 17 No. 1 - March 2007
Editor - Graham High
12 Eliot Vale, Blackheath, London, SE3 0UW
Associate Editor - Andrew Shimield
Blithe Spirit exists as a forum for diverse contributions in the writing and appreciation of haiku and kindred forms of
verse. It welcomes all related submissions from the membership. The Editors take responsibility for the selection of items
for publication and the layout of the magazine. The views expressed in articles do not necessarily reflect the Editors’ own
views.
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HAIKU & SENRYU
coloured tree lights
brighten the drizzle –
a smell of kebabs
Diana Webb
in this new jacket
so loudly
quiet
Annie Bachini
blind date –
welcome scrunch of
the pepper mill
Malcolm Williams
charcoal grey
back-lit by the moon
clouds roll eastward
(7.10.06)
Pamela Brown
slanting sunshine –
my shadow reaches
the far field wall
Martha Street
the brick pillbox
pummelled by easterlies…
shrimping redshank
Matthew Paul
Cold frosty night;
the cry of a barn owl,
a halo round the moon.
Brian White
a too small bed
ageing dahlias
bunch
Stanley Pelter
The apple reddens –
This phase of Autumn retrieves
Lost colours
Daniel Stannard
Still a working day
The slanting rays of the sun
Glorifies the sky
Hanne Hansen
leaf fall in tea bowl
one-word prayer
honed in silence
Leslie Giddens
through the patio doors:
a rainbow
in a streak of smeared glass
Andrew Detheridge
a fuchsia bean
tumbling down the pavement:
summer’s end
Keith J. Coleman
an empty bench
facing the flowerbeds
- winter time.
Auriceia Dumke
a break in the clouds
leaving my gardening shoes
a black beetle
David Serjeant
A-bombed tree
stroking the burns on impulse
Hiroshima Day
Yasuhiko Shigemoto
forty dead pheasants
outside the pub – inside, a heap
of green wellies
John Gilham
over the sea wall
waves crashing silently
jazz night in bar
Felicity Brookesmith
I stand still…
one by one the finches
return to the song
Mark Rutter
window seat – a whippet
rearranging criss-cross legs
rain gusting sideways
Sheila K. Barksdale
driving home
from the abattoir
carefully
Melissa Meek
at sunset
shadowing the village…
a big rock
Humberto Gatica
a punt slips past –
the parted reeds
swing back into place
Phillip Murrell
a sharp frost
the nip of the blackbird’s beak
taking a raisin
Margery Newlove
fog lifts
river shines
- jogger jogs
Leo Lavery
still dusk air
filling with skateboard clatter
evening chorus
R M Atkinson
through the small hole
in the fired terracotta
roots penetrating earth
John Ower
retirement day
a gray locust’s
sudden golden flight
John Ower
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AMERICAN DEATH POEMS (jisei)
Ruth Franke
The consciousness of death is in most cultures an integral part of life. If Freud is right and the death wish is a
basic desire in all human cultures, then it can be said that the Japanese, in particular,
are strongly attracted by death. It is, therefore, not amazing that the tradition of writing death poems (jisei) took root in Japan and became a widespread practice. On the verge of death, a poet used to write a "farewell
poem to life" in tanka- or haiku-form which reflected "the spiritual legacy of the Japanese" (Yoel Hoffmann in his book "Japanese Death Poems").
This tradition originally spread among Zen monks, samurai and the nobility. While the writing of jisei is still practised in Japan today, it has not caught on in the West, a fact that may be attributed
to the difference of cultures and their attitude to death. However, there is one exception: in the United States it has become quite popular to write death poems. It is rewarding to find out how they differ from classical
Japanese death poems. For this reason, I have selected some American death haiku and tanka and compared them to Japanese jisei.
Looking at American jisei, it has to be admitted that only a few are actually written at the approach of death. Certainly, not all Japanese poets composed their poems in the very last moments of life.
Worrying about a sudden death, they sometimes prepared them in the prime of life, thinking that such an important matter should be done in the best state of health and mind. Some poets, like Bashô, refused to compose
a special death poem and said that every haiku ought to be written as if it was one's death verse.
What is the reason that American authors are so involved in jisei? We can only guess. After World War II, Japanese culture and especially the haiku-form began to enchant the North Americans.
The literary scene was predisposed to this by the Transcendentalism (Whitman, Emerson and Thoreau) - a homegrown philosophy similar to Zen Buddhism – and influenced by leading American poets (Ezra Pound,
Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams). Although Zen played a minor role in the history of haiku in Japan, it was important for the development of jisei. In fact, for a long time, haiku were even regarded in North
America primarily as an expression of Zen.
My first poem reflects an atmosphere of calmness and uses images of everyday life to imply the approach of death:
last call
my empty glass
full of moonlight
William Cullen Jr.
The first line already evokes several layers of meaning. "last call" may be a final phone call or a barman's announcement for the last orders. We might even think of the last call for a person to board
a plane. In a broader sense, we are reminded of a bird's cry: the cuckoo's (hototogisu), in Japanese jisei the harbinger of death. The empty glass, drained to the dregs, is as ambiguous as the moon filling it now (the moon
is in Japanese death poems the link to the yonder world). The haiku poet Koha wrote on the verge of death: "I cast the brush aside - / from here on I'll speak to the moon / face to face". A similar mood is created in William
Cullen's haiku: a man coming to terms with his end is now alone with the moonlight.
Though the Japanese pay respect to all religions and combine customs of Buddhism, Shintoism, Confucianism and even Christianity during life and death, their idea of afterlife is mainly influenced by
Buddhist belief. While Zen-Buddhism, practised mostly by the well-educated, teaches that the solution of life's enigma is not to be found outside oneself and that inner enlightenment has to be strived for in this world, the
most widespread religion is, definitely, Jôdo-Buddhism. At the moment of death, say followers of this sect, the dying person is greeted by Amida, the Buddha of Everlasting Light. Anyone who calls on his name before
dying is reborn in the Pure Land in the West, a paradise where he himself becomes enlightened.
Death is often pictured as a journey westward by boat, from "the world of illusions" to "the world of truth". (Robun: "A water bird, asleep, / floats on the river / between life and death.") This metaphor
is well-known in Western cultures since it occurs in Greek mythology and is therefore used in American death poems as well:
shipping oars
my own wake rocks me
into shore
Jim Kacian
Indian summer
a spent salmon
washes ashore
w.f. owen
The latter poem illustrates the powerlessness of a life approaching its end through the medium of a natural image. The following two haiku communicate similar feelings by using modern vocabulary:
this trail so long
my flashlight
dimming
Charles Dickson
dead batteries –
no haiku tonight …
and then, the moon
Earl Johnson
In both cultures, falling leaves are symbols of transience and the fleetingness of man's existence:
red leaf
I return it
to the shore wind
Ellen Compton
falling pine needles the tick of the clock
George Swede
George Swede's haiku gives us another metaphor: the tick of the clock, a "memento mori" reminding us of constantly passing time. We remember Andrew Marvell's famous lines: "But at my back I
always hear, Time's winged chariot hurrying near" ('To His Coy Mistress').
Bashô wrote that "the moon and sun are travellers of eternity" and that "each day is a journey and the journey itself is home." In the West, death is likewise sensed as a homecoming:
the field's evening fog -
quietly the hound comes
to fetch me home
Robert Spiess
pointing
my way home
the starfish
Carlos Colón
Carlos Colón's poem suggests an additional interpretation: uncertainty about the right way (the five or more arms of the starfish).
In Japanese - as well as in Western – literature, the autumn wind that whirls away the leaves is a frequent symbol of evanescence ("wherever the wind may carry me"). We feel a similar affirmation
of death and readiness in this American jisei:
slowly the old woman
opens the door
to join the wind
Leatrice Lifshitz
Roberta Beary's poem
on my finger
the firefly puts out
its light
Roberta Beary
reminds us of a jisei by Chine, Kyorai's sister: "It lights up / as lightly as it fades: / a firefly". After Chine's death Kyorai wrote: "Sadly I see / the light fade on my palm: / a firefly."
In Japan, flowers represent a source of beauty in life, whereas their wilting petals are a symbol of man's passing. The Japanese poet Utsu took so much care of his cherry trees that he wanted to feed them
even after death: "The owner of the cherry blossoms / turns to compost / for the trees". In the following American jisei we feel the sadness of parting from blossoming trees and flowers:
daffodils
come play with me
spring is
in the garden
and I must leave soon
Marc Thompson
Watching
the pear tree blossom
a new sorrow –
this year it is my turn
to leave
Cherie Hunter Day
waiting alone
one by one
the flowers close
Robert Gibson
Robert Gibson's haiku conveys the feeling of loneliness and loss; flowers and fellow-travellers pass away and with them the joy of life. A touching poem creating a mood of sabi.
In the Western attitude to death, we find more frequently the idea that dying is a purely personal matter and afterlife is uncertain. In the Japanese view, where the notion of an individual salvation has
relatively little place, even death is a group-related event that guarantees continuing existence in the afterlife. The trust in the saving power of Amida Buddha allows a calmness in dying, as well as the realistic and
dignified state of mind of Zen-Buddhists. Western people who are not deeply rooted in their religion, have a harder time:
lull me, muse
into the wavering belief
that my tanka
will walk me
to the end of the road
Sanford Goldstein
When i am gone
you can search the sand
to find my name.
Do it quickly,
say the crabs.
William Ramsey
having spent my life
in the service of beauty:
now human garbage
Lindley Williams Hubbell
fork in the road
both branches
closed
Matthew Louvière
In some American death poems we find interesting metaphors for the way to the other world, taken from their own cultural background:
What's on the other side
of the sky, coyote?
Open the white door
of silence
and take me there …
June Moreau
According to a myth of the American Indians, the coyote is an inquisitive creature who can never leave things as they are and must always seek change. He helps people take the step to the
other world. In the following tanka Roberta Beary takes up the philosophical term of emptiness which in Buddhistic belief is the essence of all things:
bird call
my father would whistle
to wake me
wakes me
to a great emptiness
Roberta Beary
The bird call is both a reminiscence of her father and an allusion to the hototogisu who calls someone to start the final journey.However strange it may seem, some Japanese poets end their lives with a humorous or even ironic poem, a custom rarely to be found in Western countries. The satisfaction of having postponed
death is slyly expressed in this haiku:
age ninety-nine
she repeats herself
joyously
Steven Addiss
With the cry "Hold on!" (taken from sumo wrestling), Shayo asked death to wait a while. The following American death poem has a similar subject: an autumn image with all its colourful beauty
encourages the poet to an irrational hope:
crimson maples
maybe death
won't recognize me
Cherie Hunter Day
A poet's desire that something of him might survive, is expressed in this tanka in a bizarre but yet profound manner:
floating there
in the pickle jar
my writing hand
will survive me,
and maybe write of joy
William Ramsey
Perhaps we can interpret this as the poet's wish for a more positive outlook in the next life.
For this brief survey of American death poems I have only selected haiku or tanka that are jisei in the traditional sense and deal with a person's own death. It is, however, quite a common practice
in the West to write poems about other people's deaths, mourning for beloved ones, or even about death in general. In this connection, we have to mention the memorial poems which sometimes come very close to jisei:
once again
geese heading south
some never to return
Steve Sanfield
Migrating birds have always been a metaphor for loss and death (Choshi: "On its way west / to paradise / migrating bird").
Finally I want to quote a sequence picturing the end of a life in clear, impressive images:
Only
autumn
the path along the river
grows narrow
home from my travels
my dark house
greets me
for the last time
looking at the mountain
that is only a hill
by her sick bed
sprig of pussywillow
in a stone vase
autumn grass
waving
with one shadow
Leatrice Lifshitz
Karen Klein comments on this poem in Frogpond No. 3/2003: "…I feel the profound sense of mortality and the gravity, beauty, and simplicity with which she expresses it. From the narrowing
of the path to the dark house to the stone vase, I feel the heaviness, but also her keenly observant eye as the grass waves with one shadow, as if it were the world waving goodbye to her."
As the title implies, the mountain is only a hill, many things become unimportant when our life draws to its close. On the other hand, we value the small things around us which are a comfort
and a source of beauty. There is no fear of death in these lines, but calmness and the confidence to be released soon from the burden of a long, severe illness.
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The German original of this article was published in September 2006 in "Sommergras", the journal of the German Haiku Society.
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RETURNED FROM TRAVELS
Jo Pacsoo
I find it in the bottom of the cupboard; a bright golden yellow T-shirt. Across the front is printed a large Tibetan flag: red and blue segments radiate from a central sun above two snow lions.
Underneath is Tibetan writing. My son gave it to me when I was going to India.
‘What does it say?’ I asked him.
'I don’t know. Probably “Tibet". Wear it in Ladakh, they’ll like it.
They did, indeed like it! Monks and passers by pointed it out to each other and smiled at me. A woman in the fields said 'Buddhist, very beautiful’. Our landlady at the Kailash Guest House in
Leh told me that the writing said “rinzai” but she didn’t know the English
bent old woman
under bundles of sticks
tourists point cameras
At Spituk monastery, perched on a cliff above the river Indus, an aged lama motioned me to sit down in front of him while he studied my T-shirt with pleased interest. On the way down the hill
two monks from the monastery prodded my chest saying “Tibet” and “rinzai”, Finally, at the Tibetan Children’s Village at Choglamsar, I learned the meaning of the writing. "Rinzai" they said, means "free". So it
means “Free Tibet” I should have guessed!
slow walk in rhythm
weighed down with loads
harvesters sing
dzo* tread grain
in a threshing circle
more snow on the peaks
In McCloud Ganj, Dharamsala, we stayed in a Community House, the top floor of which was reserved for visiting monks. They, too, appreciated my T-shirt. Going upstairs after a disturbing film
about events in Tibet, there was a sharp 'hai, hai’ behind me. I turned round to shake the hand of a large monk.
nuns dig the earth
to build their dwelling place
yellow butterflies
One day we joined the crowds along the roadside to welcome the return of the Dalai Lana from his travels. We waited wreathed in juniper smoke from burning incense piles. At last, a quick glimpse
of the familiar face in a passing car. The old man beside me wasn’t sure if he had seen His Holiness and bowed to the next few cars.
Our hotel had a tea shop where the monks came to eat cakes in the afternoons. A young monk befriended us. He told us of his life as a monk and the conditions in Tibet We mentioned that the
Dalai Lama had passed so quickly we had hardly seen him. Our friend said that he was working in the palace and would try to arrange an audience for us.
1 washed my T-shirt and tried to think of all the questions 1 had ever had about Buddhism. Would it just be an in and out audience? Would it be enough just to be in his presence? I was awake
all night trying to ensure I wouldn’t waste this opportunity. We met our friend the next day, he was very sorry but His Holiness was resting after his return and was not giving audiences for a few weeks.
I try on the T-shirt. Now too tight, it goes on the reject pile.
*dzo: a yak/cattle crossbreed
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TANKA
at dusk
on the strandline
faces glow
anticipating your touch
the sharp hiss of damp driftwood
Maggie West
surprised
by this big wave
as always
despite the years
our love renews
Greg Piko
‘poor mum, poor dad’
I find myself saying –
all those years
when they twisted the knife
seem meaningless now
Haf Davies
nothing sexual
in these ninth-decade
days,
and I wonder where
all that mystery went
Sanford Goldstein
finding the latest note from you
in rhyme, telling me again
you’ll phone when you’re alone,
I’m finding your writing
illegible
Felicity Brookesmith
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BOOK REVIEWS
Spinifex by Beverley George, published by Pardalote Press, 2006, ISBN 09578436090. Pardalote Press: www.pardalote.com.au
Review by Annie Bachini
clanking billy
the mist draws
eucalypts together
The above haiku will leave you in no doubt as to which part of the world Beverly George hails from. The over a hundred haiku that have evolved from that landscape are detailed;
varied in content; and use language creatively. There is repetition in structure, however, with the kireji after the first line dominant. As a reader, if you are not careful this can detract from the individual haiku,
which are polished.
Train tunnel-
the sudden intimacy
of mirrored faces
drought-
the dusty eyelashes
of a cow
One haibun and a number of sequences combine with the other haiku to complete the collection. Unfortunately, it is not always clear, from the content, where the sequences end. I think a
blank page to indicate a shift from a sequence to individual haiku would have been helpful. There is a different image edging the inner pages of the sequences, but it takes a while to realise this signification.
Scorched Garden : a sequence
bushhfire aftermath— `scorched garden— snail shells—
snap of a stem the clivia releases silver labels twine
underfoot a bumt leaf to dead plants
scuttling gecko— leafless stem—
tips of camellia leaves prune above
curled and brown a green bud
The haibun, ‘Gathering Coke’ at the end of the book, is exemplary. It charts the writer and her brother meeting a half-brother for the first time, when late in their lives, and how this enables
a move towards healing feelings of abandonment by their deceased father. The pitch is perfect: not at all sentimental, just very moving.
Beverley George has a background in ‘conventional’ poetry and also writes tanka. There is more use of adjectives and adverbs in her work than is usual in haiku, but their inclusion seems
appropriate for the kind of precision she aims for.
Winter oak
the moon lights
a ragged nest
This book reflects current trends in haiku.
Empty Garden by Beverley George, Yellow Moon, Sydney, 2006
available from the author: PO box 37, Pearl Beach 2256, Australia ISBN: 0957883161
Review by Doreen King
This is a book of well-presented tanka from one of Australia’s top tanka poets. Some of the tanka presented here have won international prizes. The one below shows the confidence with
which Beverley George can allow so much room for the reader to step in:
roadside grass –
two blackbirds rise
then settle
and I am surprised
by longing
The book tackles the painful subject of divorce and loneliness – a subject so difficult to write about while keeping focused enough to avoid all sentimentality – but Beverley George does it
smoothly, gently, and very well indeed:
you ask why I
reject this half-life love…
intimacy
of any kind
provokes a constant thirst
Beverley George’s book is for all lovers of tanka and it is a credit to the Australian ‘tanka scene’.
Table Turning – British Haiku Society Haibun Anthology,
ISSN 0-952239-78 available from Colin Blundell, Longholm, East Bank, Sutton Bridge, Spalding, Lincs., PE12 9YS. Price £5.50 (incl. p&p)
Review by Andrew Shimield
92 Haibun were submitted for this anthology, by 36 writers and from these Ken Jones and David Cobb, having read them ‘authors unknown’, have selected 18 from 10 of the entrants for
inclusion in this book.
In their introduction the judges are at pains to point out that “the BHS Annual Haibun Award is not conceived as a contest, more as an educational process from
which haibun writing in general may gradually benefit.” After each haibun both judges give a short appraisal of what they consider to be the strengths and weaknesses of the piece in question. The haibun are
all good, ranging from such themes as: a prawn found on the street, a day-dreaming factory worker and running on a beach in Borneo.
It’s valuable to be able to read the haibun and critique and then re-read the piece in the light of the comments made. For example, after Bethany Sullivan’s ‘New Arrival’ both judges observe
that the piece loses momentum towards the end and David suggests it should finish at an earlier point. The reader can then see how this would work.
The comments are as interesting as the haibun and I wish there were more of them. After Graham High’s ‘Table Turning’ David writes only: “This is a very polished piece in a pleasant relaxed
style, with three well-adjusted haiku”. To live up to the stated aim of an ‘educational process’, more comment than that is needed.
That small gripe aside, this is a great project – a contest with no winners and the overall goal of increasing awareness and standards of haibun writing. From reading it myself, I’ve gained a
good insight into the role of haiku in haibun, when they work and when they don’t, how they can expand the scope of a piece or make it fall flat. I think anyone writing haibun today will find something of value
in its pages.
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